Sometimes, a rather more direct Shout-Out or name dropping is attempted, but to do so would skirt dangerously close to trademark law. While there are plenty of ways to use substitutes or write around the trademarks, another way is to go ahead with the reference, but deliberately not go through with it, just far enough for the audience to know exactly who or what you're talking about.

There are many ways to get around this visually: Censor mosaic, a black bar over the eyes, or pull back and only make a strong resemblance. But with dialogue, a common way is to have a character obliquely reference the Fourth Wall by stopping the mention before it finishes, directly warning the speaker about getting their makers in trouble. In writing, especially for comics and manga, whatever word they want to say will be said by the character, but the text of the name itself will be partially blanked out or substituted with wingdings.

Examples:

Hilariously Invoked and Lampshaded by Samsung to lampoon the NFL's over-enthusiastic defense of its trademarks in their preparations for a Supe—*censored*, ahem, Big Gamead.

UK off-licence chain Oddbins invoked this trope in their ads in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, referencing the fact that only official licensed adverts could directly refer to them. This led to such Oddbins ads as "We're not allowed to use the name. We're not allowed to mention the location. We're not even allowed to mention the year. But celebrate them with us anyway" and "Celebrate the [CENSORED] with Oddbins" (yes, that's exactly how it was printed).

EU law is such that the names "Parmesan" and "Feta" can no longer be used to refer generically to cheese varieties, but only to cheeses specifically from their original production regions. Hence there's a lot of "Greek-style salad cheese" and "Italian-style cheese" around. It is probably only a matter of time before we see "Canadian West-Country Style cheese".

Thus they can make references to other properties they own. There's several references to Kamen Rider Den-O instead throughout, almost all of them being catchphrases of Momotaros. (And obviously Super Sentai as a whole with the name, and a couple veiled referencess to Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger thrown in.)

Saishuu KIIIIIIIIKKU!

Also, they referenced Dragon Quest V like above. "A childhood friend? Or a rich lady? One has lots of money... And the ability to cast Boho_mi and I___zun." (Bohoimi = Midheal and Ionazun = Kaboom)

Happens every five minutes in Hayate the Combat Butler; every single trademarked name is bleeped out, which leads to some pretty bleep-heavy sentences where otaku Nagi is involved.

A particularly funny example shows up when Hayate is about to use a sword technique whose name starts with "Hiten--" His opponent cuts him off, saying they can't risk that kind of reference, even with bleeps.

The anime's second season averts all this, with barely any lack of pop culture references.

In Excel Saga there's a seiyuu joke where Excel is dressed similarly to Sailor Moon and does an In the Name of the Moon speech, and the bad guy says, "Hey, that's that anime from awhile ago, Sailor ***, right? Nah, that one's already over..."

In Gintama, during the Bentendo Owee arc, Katsura makes a showy entrance in a costume that's obviously based on that of certain plumber, which prompts an onlooker to ask if he's Mario, though they get cut off by him before they can say the "o"...only for him go ahead and say "It's not Mario, it's Katsu-", which gets him a kick in the face from Shinpachi. Subverted when it turns out he just was annoyed at Katsura's stupidity for appearing directly in front of Shinsengumi when they intend to arrest him (Though Hijikata is stupid enough to think he's actually Mario).

In Rosario + Vampire: 2nd Year, when Kokoa magically shrinks into a child's body after one of Yukari's inventions backfires, the girls try to find clothes that would suit her condition. One of them is an Arale cosplay, which she at first takes in stride, but then tears the costume off while citing the trope.

In one chapter of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, the characters are in a space opera setting and are being attacked by mechs that are not Zakus. One of the characters warns that they're bordering on copyright infringement here, which is apparently a bigger concern than being killed.

In Ratman, Super Zero Fatman is given his own Thememobile — A tumblar called the Fatmobile. An aside is asked to not tell Warner Bros....

When Sora and Shiro see the Flugels' castle, they try to bring it down with "Ba*se", but fail.

Upon seeing that the video game in which they're fighting against the Warbeasts' representation looks like it's in Tokyo, Sora and Shiro are briefly thrown into a crippling Heroic B.S.O.D., believing that it's their world, where they're NEETs unable to go outside. After snapping out of it, Sora tries to convince Shiro that it's a video game, like "Pers*na or Stein's G*te or Akiba Str*p", while characters from the games(Chie, Kurisu and Kati) appear with black strips over their eyes. More subtly, before the characters appear, there's a mostly yellow background that's highly reminiscent of the menu screens in Persona 4.

In one chapter of My Hero Academia, the students of Class 1-A are tasked with coming up with their superhero names. Mina, whose power is generating Hollywood Acid, wants to call herself "Heroine of Ridley: Alien Queen"note In his notes, the author notes that "Heroine of Cameron" would have been more appropriate. Professional heroine Midnight, who's rating the names, points out that using the name could get Mina in trouble and has her think of another one.

Comic Books

Adam Warren ran this joke into the ground for his Genął limited series Magical Drama Queen Roxy. Usually said by the "fairy god critter" (who also apologizes for saying "bibbity boppity boo" and mentioning the Whitney Houston version of Cinderella). Toward the end he does the death scene from Titanic (1997) with a large sign in front of "Jack's" face, saying "not really (a series of increasingly silly misspellings of Leo's name), really!!"

From an old Wonder Man one-shot that featured Simon Williams ending up in the Mojo verse. Mojo's lackey points out that Marvel owns the Wonder Man copyright:

Mojo: No problem. A quick gender flip and we market him as Wonder Wo...

From Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, there is a comment from an employee that says she will be punished, and will end up working on Taco Bell. On a little footnote, it says Don't sue me, I'm funny!.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns teases Superman's appearance with news stories of people being saved by a red/blue blur. The news anchor keeps trying to say lines from the opening of the Fleischer Brothers cartoons, but is warned against finishing them each time due to legal concerns.

During the Batman: Hush storyline, both Batman and Catwoman at one point say, "Faster than a speeding...you know."

Plastic Man Don't make me use force on you! Luke That line would have been funnier if you'd turned into Darth Va— Plastic Man Fine. You get sued.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) had an Owlbear appear, Luna briefly considering making it her pet before deciding that might be legally problematic. Ironically enough Luna was mistaken on that point, Hasbro own both properties and many other D&D monsters appear throughout the series.

Arne Anka, has an episode where the titular character, an anthropomorphic duck for the record, has been invited to a wedding but has a problem finding anything formal to wear for it. After digging through his wardrobe, all he is able to find is an old sailor suit, but after trying it on, Arne observes that he cannot not show himself in public wearing it as it makes him look highly reminiscent of a certain other anthropomorphic duck, and he would likely get sued. And indeed, Disney had previously threatened the comic with a lawsuit.

Film

In Austin Powers in Goldmember, the events during a chase scene set in Japan include a cart carrying a statue of a Godzilla-like monster rolling through the streets. A random person in the street shouts "Run! It's Godzilla!" Another personnote who would be Masi Oka, standing next to him, mentions that it's clearly not Godzilla, because if it were, it would violate copyright laws. The first responds "Still, we should run like it is Godzilla! Though it isn't." before running away in panic. The very next shot has what is unmistakably a Charmander float.

In The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, after one character produces a lightsaber from "the trunk", he's informed that "he can't use a lightsaber, it's not even the right system!"

Brother Silence: I don't see a lightsaber. That would be copyright infringement. I see a psionic spirit blade. note This is an actual item in some editions of D&D making this a double example of this trope.

Mel Brooks: What the hell are you worried about? This is 1874. You'll be able to sue her! note Funnily enough, Hedy Lamarr did end up suing the movie over the use of her name.

Live Action TV

Lampshaded when Alton Brown has an episode "busting" some food myths in Good Eats. Just as he starts to say "bust some my-", the telephone rings and he demands his lawyer on why he can't finish the phrase. The reason? "'COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT'?!" He reluctantly changes it to "Myth Smashers".

Done in-universe in iCarly. They start singing "Happy Birthday" on the webshow, only for Freddie to interrupt them and point out that it isn't public domain. They switch to "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".

Scooter: The people that published the music from Camelot just called and they won't let you do it. Kermit: What? I was willing to give them credit! I would've given them a big build up! I would have given anything to do the jousting scene! Scooter: They want money. Kermit: Cancel the jousting scene.

Camelot must be a particularly good target because we get this gag in the Animaniacs episode "Sir Yaksalot":

"In the town of Camelot "We love to sing all day, "But we can't sing the movie score "Or else they'll make us pay!"

The 10th volume of the DVD collections of the series was originally released with Godzilla vs. Megalon; unfortunately, the rights fell through, and the future releases of volume "10.2" had an extra skit on the replacement The Giant Gila Monster disk where Dr. Forrester scolds TV's Frank for not getting the rights to the "Japanese Giant Monster Movie" (or as Frank and Joel put it, "(Mumble) vs. (Unintelligible)").

Hilariously toyed with by James May on an episode of Top Gear where, while cooking during a camping episode, he spends about 2 minutes trying to describe a particular treat whose name can't be specifically used for legal reasons...but then finishes up with, "but of course you know they're Jaffa Cakes."

LazyTown once acknowledged that Robbie Rotten's disguise gallery looked a little too much like the suit gallery in Power Rangers Zeo's Power Chamber.

Bill: Saban is gonna sue you for stealing his idea.

Unfortunately, in real life, Saban Brandsdid sue LazyTown Entertainment for this. Thanks to this, Robbie's disguise gallery was altered so that each costume was projected one at a time instead of being shown in tubes all at once.

Bat Boy: Now! Onto the window sill! Faster than a speeding bullet, Kapweeng! Up... up... up and away! Rubin: Wait a minute, Bat Boy! That 'faster than a speeding bullet' is another character's routine!... It may be copyrighted! Want to get us sued?

This and many other references to the fact that these characters are not those other comic book characters are payback for legal threats from DC concerning their previous parody, "Superduperman". Ironically, MAD had predicted they would get sued for their still earlier Dragnet parody, whose opening caption said, "Only the names haven't been changed so as not to protect the writer of this story!"

Music

In Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, the Indian chief sweetens his offer to sell New York to the Dutch by adding Staten Island to the package, and the real estate agents exclaims, "Is that a generous Indian? You'll have Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too!" He then gets a phone call (presumably from Richard Rodgers's lawyer) with the message that they'll have to pay royalties if they quote any more. The Indian threatens to bring on another phone call by mentioning his wife's preference for "baubles, bangles, bright shiny beads."

In The Beatles' 1965 Christmas message to their fan club, John starts singing a song by The Four Tops:

John: It's the same old song, but a different meaning since... George: Copyright, Johnny!

The Barron Knights made an entire career of parodying current pop songs. They sometimes got into trouble for this; and they once lampshaded this with one of their medleys, appropriately called "Trouble".

Professional Wrestling

Curt Hennig, at the time formerly Mr. Perfect in the WWF (now WWE), cut off frequent associate Rick Rude from calling him perfect on WCW television so they wouldn't get sued.

TNA had another example, when the Planet Jarrett stable had a mock-funeral for Team 3D's career. James Storm started to mock one of the catchphrases they used in WWE as The Dudley Boys, only for Jeff Jarrett to cut him off:

Jarrett: James! Be serious for a moment! Their careers are already dead, they don't need another lawsuit!

Jarrett has had a moment like that of his own. He defeated Mark Starr on the August 17, 1997 WCW Saturday Night. After the match, "Mean" Gene Okerlund called him "Double..uh, Jeff Jarrett", a reference to Jarrett's WWE Red Baron "Double J."

This is a frequent joke on Car Talk due to Tom and Ray's unabashed negative opinions of certain companies *coughGMChryslerFordcough*, though there have been several occasions when they've actually gotten in trouble.

Faye Jackson got a joking chastisement on Reality Check Radio when she announced Cody Rhodes would be making his ROH debut at Final Battle, being told they can't say "Rhodes".

Theatre

Louisiana Purchase begins with a lawyer warning the musical's authors that they'll get sued unless they make it clear that everything in the show, including the state of Louisiana, is fictional.

In the Japanese version of Mega Man 7, Mega Man will sometimes converse with Roll or Auto instead of Dr. Light after acquiring a new weapon (screenshots with translations here). One of these is likely meant as a parody of the trope since it references a property jointly-owned by Capcom:

In BlazBlue, one episode of "Teach Me, Miss Litchi!" has Litchi comparing Ragna to Chipp Zanuff, prompting the former to yell "Gauntlet Hades!" to "obscure" the meaning. (In the English dub of that episode, she's just interrupted while mentioning Chipp's name by Taokaka loudly entering Litchi's clinic.)

In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, after the chapter's end, you can still go hide by the birds in Twilight Town and listen to them talk. One of the birds wants to open a pay site for real estate called "Luigi's Mansion". The other bird thinks he's heard the name somewhere before, and warns him against using it, lest he get sued. (They go ahead and say the name, because both are by Nintendo.)

In Kid Icarus: Uprising, Pit comments that the Komaytos look a lot like Metroids. Viridi is not pleased and insists that "this game universe and that game universe have nothing to do with each other!" Again, both are owned by Nintendo.

The Tazmanian Devil is a real animal, not a copyright of a certain large corporation with lots of legal muscle. I can therefore mention it by name in this game. Unfortunately, if I were to describe a real-life Tazmanian Devil, you'd only be disappointed—they don't look like much. So, I won't describe the slavering beast before you. And if you assume that it has a boxy body attached to short thin legs, two large maniacal eyes set above a wide, drooling, sharp-fanged mouth, and brown fur all over, then YOU'RE violating copyright, not me.

Nezumi Castle in the amusement park on the Fourth Island is a large, mouse-themed castle. Hajime says, "There's a lot of things I could say about this building, but it's probably better if I say nothing at all", and Monokuma and Monomi reveal that they're both terrified of mice.

Monokuma: A transformation is customary in a final boss battle, right? You know, like that one role-playing game? You know what game I'm talking about. Final—

Kazuichi Soda: Don't say it!

Webcomics

Coga Suro has Steve announcing that he's found a name for his Ridiculously Human Robot -as it changes into a costume resembling that of Marvel's The Vision, Steve has enough time to announce it as 'The Vis-' before Jerry interrupts him by smiting him with an object.

In The Wotch, Anne attempts to make Jason's comics into moving pictures, but instead brings them to life... as obvious Expy clones. When Jason suggests that magic has to obey copyright laws, Robin points out that even he, a non-comic fan, can tell which character is which, and starts to name them, to be quickly interrupted with:

This is later used to Vaarsuvius's advantage when he ends up in a fight with a Drizzt knock-off. Later we discover that he's protected by parody clause and allowed to return.

The print version of Book 1 features a new, print-exclusive prologue, explaining that the story takes place in the world of a popular roleplaying game — though they can't say which one because it would be a trademark violation. Cut to a panel with players at a table suggesting they play three Bland-Name Product knockoffs of the actual name of the game.

Another Yugioh Abridged Example was, strangely enough, a retroactive instance of this trope. Tea said "It is on in a matter similar to that of Donkey Kong." Shortly after the episode was released, by complete coincidence, Nintendo filed a trademark on the real phrase, "It's on like Donkey Kong."

Hogan Vs Flair bills a number of WWE and TNA wrestlers under other names, ostensibly for just this reason. . For example The Dudley Boyz/Team 3D are called "Team 3rd Dimension", with Bubba Ray billed as "Bowling Shirt" and D-Von called "Camo Pants".

GradeAUnderA once made a video exposing pranksters on YouTube, but to avoid his video being taken down, he also made alternate explanations for every piece of proof that a video was staged using actors.

In-universe in "Lisa the Beauty Queen." The school fair includes the tagline "The Happiest Place on Earth," which the blue-haired lawyer says is a Disneyland trademark and threatens to sue Skinner. However, Skinner then uses his Green Beret training to beat up the lawyer and his goons with frightening efficiency.

In another episode, Lisa tells the story of Snow White. The blue-haired lawyer guy tells her she can't because the tale belongs to Disney, but Lisa counters this by claiming the tale has been out forever and isn't owned by anyone. Plus the dwarves were her own creation.

Another "Treehouse of Horror" opens with the Simpson family cast as The Munsters. Lisa/Marilyn is carrying a book of copyright law.

The episode "Children of a Lesser Clod" has an in-universe example: Krusty is singing to open an awards ceremony — only to yell for the music to stop after the first line, saying "one more line and we have to pay for the song."

"The President Wore Pearls" is a spoof of Evita (with Lisa as Eva Peron), but the end credits include the statement "On the advice of our lawyers, we have never heard of any musical about the life of Eva Peron".

In another episode, the characters refer a few times to McDaniels and various generic-sounding Expys of McDonald's products, followed each time by a frustrated Lampshade by Quagmire.

Quagmire: So frustrating. We all KNOW what we're talking about!

Yet another episode has Brian and Stewie sharing candy they got for Halloween over the ending credits, but as Stewie says, they're not allowed to use real-world candy names and instead come up with various names that are almost but not quite the same. It ends with Stewie muttering, "God I hate television."

Master Shake: Whoa! Where in the hell did you get a lightsa... Frylock: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Waver, lightwaver! Very different from what you are about to say.

Hilariously this is the only moment in the episode that invokes this trope while for most the episode and a few moments after this scene the trope is averted.

On Celebrity Deathmatch, Tobey Maguire battles Jake Gyllenhaal with a box from which spring forth giant metal tentacles which are clearly NOT Doctor Octopus's arms from Spider-Man 2 because that, points out the announcer, would be copyright infringement.

In Yin Yang Yo!, there's a minor villain named The Puffin. Like The Penguin, he has an umbrella and a top hat, but as Yang points out: As long as they specify that he is a puffin, they can't be sued.

"Weird Al" Yankovic once made an appearance in an episode of Eek! The Cat. When Eek starts gushing about Al's music, Al shushes him with "You sing one note, and you'll be paying some goofball's publishing company from now 'til the end of forever. Do you want that? Huh? Do you?!"

One South Park ends with a fourth-wall lean about how the characters (i.e. creators) are free to exercise their freedom of speech regarding Scientology being a scam and are not afraid of being sued. Cue a credits roll entirely consisting of John and Jane Smiths.

In Episode 5, Randall's high school yearbook photo has his head placed over the famous photo of General Nguyen. For reasons that eluded the writers, adding a fictional character to a cartoon version of a copyrighted photo didn't legally constitute parody - until they added a caption.◊.

Pinky and the Brain: Brain once tried to raise money in the theater world. The producer he tried to pitch his play said he wanted something different from the works of Andrew Lloyd WebberExpy Albert Floyd Webster, but only different enough to avoid being sued.

The Fairly OddParents!. When The Three Musketeers were given mice-like features, Wanda said they became the three Mous... Timmy interrupted her. While "Mouseketeer" was a word used in some Tom and Jerry cartoons, a different group of Mouseketeers were a Disney property, and perhaps a bit more likely to get someone sued.

One of Futurama's "Tales of Interest" episodes featured a group of people who "resemble but are legally distinct from the Lollipop Guild".

In the Walter Melon episode parodying Jurassic Park, the heroine suggests the park may have been sabotaged by a rival theme park. Not wanting to get sued, the John Hammond Expy cuts her off before she can name whatever one she was thinking of.

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